“The World ends in an hour!”

As this line marqueed over the television screen, all were up the spout. Nitin was calling his
girlfriend. Pooja, her kitty friends. Mom, her husband. Grandma, her God-friend. In this erratic
situation, I was busy calling everyone and every other one seemed lesser to take care of me.

Mom rushes into her bedroom, and tucks her best jewellery, clothes in the suit-case, while
munching on a sandwich. She was too inconsiderate, and hardly cared about me or anybody
else. I remembered her manicured hand’s soft touch, her way of caressing me when I was
young, and her way of feeding me, but they were gone. All gone ! How one simple line on the
television screen could alter a human’s attitude towards others startled me.

Rushing with tears rushing, I went into Nitin’s room. He was busy collecting the souvenirs of
the ‘good’ times spent with his unfaithfully faithful girlfriend. As I tried to talk to him, he
shouted and I had to do nothing but return. I was again lost in the lane of memories
recollecting times of having a sumptuous lunch with Nitin, a play of ball and much more.
Alas, they were the talk of past, and the present was full of sorrow!

Pooja was perhaps the most dramatic of all these. With Skype on her laptop, and friends
polishing their nails on either side of screen, they were statistically forecasting and analysing
the future of their daily soaps. Perhaps that was more important than life, or so they thought.
And, again my presence went into oblivion with not more than one corner glimpse of Pooja. I
was again rejected.

Dejected, I tread the path less tread, and moved towards Granny’s room. There she sat on
her mat, lost in the rosaries, impervious to the news. Hearing me coming in, she opened up
her eyes gracefully, and greeted me with a smile. Putting her hand around me, she started
talking of the greatness of Krishna, how he managed to be detachedly attached to the
humanity, and dwell in the same time in the vastness of the cosmos. Though, I hardly
understood a word of her, I was happy with the attention I received.

Outside the window, I could see people going haywire, and many yelling, others sobbing,
some sledging, and much more. Sitting in the coolness, and learning of the virtuous
omnipresence, I went into a state of trance. But it was again short-lived, and people started
banging and barging again.

There were a few more minutes, and as I sat there, I contemplated on the events. How
egocentric were people? How they went into their own selfish spheres ignoring all that
happens? How hypocritical had they been, when they said they loved me, and now they
ignored me?

But, then crept in a strange smile over my face, and my tail wagged again, as I cerebrated –

“ It was better that I had been a dog, and not a human. ”